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Monday, January 14, 2013

Sewing a Zipper

First off this is just a basic tutorial, I didn't use an invisible zipper, and the dress is not fully lined, but a lot of the steps still say the same. Of course you want to make sure you've got a zipper foot (or an invisible zipper foot if you're sewing an invisible zipper and you actually want it to be invisible). Open and close your zipper a few times to make sure there's no issues with that, nothing worse then sewing a zipper all the way in and finding out there's something wrong with it.

Open you zipper, fold the top flap down and pin about 2/8 of an inch down (you can pin it further down, just make sure it's the same on both sides, do not pin it all the way at the top), to the right side of the fabric zipper teeth facing inward.

Sew as far down as you want it to go, and then curve outward.

Essentially you can do this part at any time. I didn't put in full lining, but I put a little in the collar and you can use this same technique for regular lining. You fold back the lining over the right side of the of the fabric and sew down from there.

When you're done the top of the zipper should look something like this.

Okay, so now you want to do the other side, you of course want both sides to match up, so before you start sewing, close your zipper, lay your fabric out and mark on the zipper where you want the opposite side to line up. Then open it back up and sew it as usual.

Made a video for this next step, it's the last step for putting IN the zipper and it keeps it from popping out when you're done.

You see that curved stitch is where I sewed the zipper in half. DO NOT SEW OVER THE TEETH! And the straight stitch next to it is how you keep the ugly bottom of the zipper from showing.

Should have ironed it before I snapped this picture, but you get the idea right? Hope this helps those of you out there who are maybe a little zipper-phobic.

Last Tip: Let's say you bought a zipper that was longer then you needed and you want to cut part of it off. Do not cut straight across, zippers have that zigzag cut to them because that keeps them from unraveling. So if you've got a pair of scissors that do that use them, if not do your best to cut zigzag.